Tag Archives: Mike Reilley

An analysis of monthly reports of the Indiana unemployment rates during the Obama administration illustrates the lingering recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics captures the sharp increase of joblessness as the Great Recession hit hard in 2009. But it also shows that despite political rhetoric, Indiana may have reached a level of recovery under President Obama.

Much of the 2016 presidential campaign rhetoric centered on the economy, specifically on the creation of jobs in the industrial Midwest.

Jobs were an issue of particular interest to voters in Indiana. At the height of the Great Recession, unemployment levels reached a high of 10.9 percent in June 2009.

Compared to the BLS national averages, Indiana started at a lower level but once the effects of the crisis set in, it averaged an unemployment rate of almost a full percentage point higher than that of the country as a whole.

Voters didn’t forget that feeling of desperation between 2009 and 2014. The “America First” candidate Donald Trump was able to capitalize on that lingering feeling while the data shows that Indiana unemployment levels actually fell to below 2009 rates by the end of President Obama’s term.

Trump based some of his candidacy on bringing back jobs. He followed through with his controversial Carrier deal during the transition in November 2016.

This Google Earth Engine timelapse tool shows the expansion of South Bend over the past 30 years. The site uses NASA satellite images to show progressive change. [Hit the play button in the lower left to animate it]

Indiana’s population grew by an estimated 20,285 residents in 2015, for a 0.3 percent increase that boosted its population to an estimated 6.6 million people statewide, according to Census Bureau numbers.

But the state’s population is growing at about half the rate it did during the 1990s, continuing a trend that began during the 2007 recession, statistics show. Some experts say the state isn’t adding jobs fast enough since the recession.

Indiana’s population mirrors that of some its border states. But one, Illinois, has begun losing population because of jobs, crime, high taxation and other cost-of-living factors.